[The Problem]
With the rapid changes in our built environment, we are using more and more natural resources to produce new materials to construct the built environment out of. It is necessary to consider all stages of life of the materials; the production, the construction, the life cycle, and the demolition. Each construction material is manufactured from raw materials, energy, and produces waste. Often these materials are manufactured far from the construction site and energy is expended through transportation efforts. Many construction materials are non-recyclable such as insulation and vinyl tiling and thus when a building is no longer deemed useful in the condition it is in, demolition produces mass amount of waste that cannot be dealt with. In the example of concrete, the rock and sand that is used as aggregates are not extremely energy or resource intensive but the cement mixed in, if Portland cement, is manufactured by heating a mixture of limestone and shale in a kiln to approximately 1500 degree Celsius. Thus the Portland cement has a high embodied energy and the reaction between the limestone and shale produces CO2. The fuel in the kiln produces more CO2. The water used in the construction process is only a sustainability issue if the area is already lacking in accessible water. Concrete generally necessitates the use of mixers and other heavy equipment to finish the construction process. Recycled concrete can be used as aggregates but a survey by the Federal Highway Administration shows that only 38 states recycle concrete as an aggregate and only 11 recycle it into new Portland cement. It is estimated that a 2,000 square foot home produces about 4-7 tons of waste costing approximately $1,400 in waste disposal costs, most of this waste recyclable such as concrete, and mixed wood and drywall. A reuse of this waste or prevention of it in the first place, saves energy not only in production but also land use in landfills and prevents CO2 emission through incineration.
[The Solution]
A clear step towards a better built environment is taking the waste we have produced in other aspects of our life and putting it towards building materials. There have been small movements toward using sustainable materials and recycled materials in building but they are not widespread movements. The waste we produce includes aluminum, paper, glass, plastic, and other solid wastes. Using these materials in construction would not only create greener buildings but also eliminate this waste from landfills or recycling centers that often expend more energy than they are saving. The paper can be used for insulation as can blue jeans. Blue jeans, as mentioned by Ryan Scott in his Why Worry presentation are extremely energy intensive to manufacture and have a short lifespan. Aluminum cans, of which we use 80,000,000,000 a year, and plastic bottles, of which we use 2,500,000 per hour, can be used for constructing interior, non-structural walls or when coupled with a structural system can be used to make strong exterior walls. The mining and transporting of raw materials for glass produces about 385 pounds of waste for every ton of glass that is made. They can be used for windows and colored light elements in buildings. In 1990, over 240 million scrap tires were discarded in the United States alone and approximately 3 billion waste tires had piled up in landfills and stockpiles. Every year, over 77% of the annual production of scrap tires were landfilled, stockpiled or dumped. Tires take up a large amount of space because of the nature of their shape. The Earthship habitats constructed by Michael Reynolds use rammed earth in recycled automobile tires to create extremely strong load-bearing walls. These tires also utilize the concept of thermal mass to store temperature and lower heating and cooling costs. The only things that deteriorate the tires are sunlight and fire, neither of which is a problem in the use of buildings because they are plastered over. The tires also are resilient to earthquakes because they are a non-brittle building element.
In addition to the tires, it is important to create buildings that are durable. Wood is an excellent material that lasts for many generations when protected well though it can be a sustainability problem is misused. The image below shows a façade of a building constructed of old ties constructed in Spain.
Another example of building using recycled building materials is the Big Dig House in Lexington, Massachusetts by Bahamon and Sanjines. It is constructed of over 600,000 pounds of materials salvaged from the Big Dig in Boston. These materials include steel tubes and beams. They are waste materials that had no place to be stored.
In Thailand, Buddhist monks collected a million bottles to build the Wat Pa Maha Kaew temple. The bottles are from Heineken and Chang [a local beer company].
A barrier toward the use of these recycled materials is if it becomes more energy intensive to clean and shape these materials for their new use then it is to obtain new ones. Stakeholders include green material production companies, such as those that produce blue jean insulation, architects whom are able to construct buildings at lower costs, waste removal companies who have fewer waste materials to dispose of, and homeowners, whom are able to achieve high quality green building at a lower cost. The stakeholders whom will feel the negative effects will be those who are producing energy intensive products. The downside of this methodology may be that people will feel less guilt when consuming the materials the first time around knowing that they will be recycled. The benefits from using recycled materials will far outweigh that possible effect. The buildings produced not only offer lower energy consumption during the construction process and production, but often as a result of the more intensive study of material properties, they are more durable, and sustainable in their specific use in the building.
In conclusion, this type of construction requires much more creativity than architects and contractors are used to so it will take a acceptance of the new methods by the education institution and code regulation agencies to move forward with a greater use of this type of construction. These buildings provide an example toward which building professionals should strive toward to create a greener environment.
Recycled Building Materials
[The Problem]
With the rapid changes in our built environment, we are using more and more natural resources to produce new materials to construct the built environment out of. It is necessary to consider all stages of life of the materials; the production, the construction, the life cycle, and the demolition. Each construction material is manufactured from raw materials, energy, and produces waste. Often these materials are manufactured far from the construction site and energy is expended through transportation efforts. Many construction materials are non-recyclable such as insulation and vinyl tiling and thus when a building is no longer deemed useful in the condition it is in, demolition produces mass amount of waste that cannot be dealt with. In the example of concrete, the rock and sand that is used as aggregates are not extremely energy or resource intensive but the cement mixed in, if Portland cement, is manufactured by heating a mixture of limestone and shale in a kiln to approximately 1500 degree Celsius. Thus the Portland cement has a high embodied energy and the reaction between the limestone and shale produces CO2. The fuel in the kiln produces more CO2. The water used in the construction process is only a sustainability issue if the area is already lacking in accessible water. Concrete generally necessitates the use of mixers and other heavy equipment to finish the construction process. Recycled concrete can be used as aggregates but a survey by the Federal Highway Administration shows that only 38 states recycle concrete as an aggregate and only 11 recycle it into new Portland cement. It is estimated that a 2,000 square foot home produces about 4-7 tons of waste costing approximately $1,400 in waste disposal costs, most of this waste recyclable such as concrete, and mixed wood and drywall. A reuse of this waste or prevention of it in the first place, saves energy not only in production but also land use in landfills and prevents CO2 emission through incineration.
[The Solution]
A clear step towards a better built environment is taking the waste we have produced in other aspects of our life and putting it towards building materials. There have been small movements toward using sustainable materials and recycled materials in building but they are not widespread movements. The waste we produce includes aluminum, paper, glass, plastic, and other solid wastes. Using these materials in construction would not only create greener buildings but also eliminate this waste from landfills or recycling centers that often expend more energy than they are saving. The paper can be used for insulation as can blue jeans. Blue jeans, as mentioned by Ryan Scott in his Why Worry presentation are extremely energy intensive to manufacture and have a short lifespan. Aluminum cans, of which we use 80,000,000,000 a year, and plastic bottles, of which we use 2,500,000 per hour, can be used for constructing interior, non-structural walls or when coupled with a structural system can be used to make strong exterior walls. The mining and transporting of raw materials for glass produces about 385 pounds of waste for every ton of glass that is made. They can be used for windows and colored light elements in buildings. In 1990, over 240 million scrap tires were discarded in the United States alone and approximately 3 billion waste tires had piled up in landfills and stockpiles. Every year, over 77% of the annual production of scrap tires were landfilled, stockpiled or dumped. Tires take up a large amount of space because of the nature of their shape. The Earthship habitats constructed by Michael Reynolds use rammed earth in recycled automobile tires to create extremely strong load-bearing walls. These tires also utilize the concept of thermal mass to store temperature and lower heating and cooling costs. The only things that deteriorate the tires are sunlight and fire, neither of which is a problem in the use of buildings because they are plastered over. The tires also are resilient to earthquakes because they are a non-brittle building element.
In addition to the tires, it is important to create buildings that are durable. Wood is an excellent material that lasts for many generations when protected well though it can be a sustainability problem is misused. The image below shows a façade of a building constructed of old ties constructed in Spain.
Another example of building using recycled building materials is the Big Dig House in Lexington, Massachusetts by Bahamon and Sanjines. It is constructed of over 600,000 pounds of materials salvaged from the Big Dig in Boston. These materials include steel tubes and beams. They are waste materials that had no place to be stored.
In Thailand, Buddhist monks collected a million bottles to build the Wat Pa Maha Kaew temple. The bottles are from Heineken and Chang [a local beer company].
A barrier toward the use of these recycled materials is if it becomes more energy intensive to clean and shape these materials for their new use then it is to obtain new ones. Stakeholders include green material production companies, such as those that produce blue jean insulation, architects whom are able to construct buildings at lower costs, waste removal companies who have fewer waste materials to dispose of, and homeowners, whom are able to achieve high quality green building at a lower cost. The stakeholders whom will feel the negative effects will be those who are producing energy intensive products. The downside of this methodology may be that people will feel less guilt when consuming the materials the first time around knowing that they will be recycled. The benefits from using recycled materials will far outweigh that possible effect. The buildings produced not only offer lower energy consumption during the construction process and production, but often as a result of the more intensive study of material properties, they are more durable, and sustainable in their specific use in the building.
In conclusion, this type of construction requires much more creativity than architects and contractors are used to so it will take a acceptance of the new methods by the education institution and code regulation agencies to move forward with a greater use of this type of construction. These buildings provide an example toward which building professionals should strive toward to create a greener environment.
[MORE INFO]
Affordable Houses made from straw: http://inhabitat.com/affordable-earthquake-resistant-homes-made-from-straw/
Recycled Materials made into usable artwork: http://www.thespeckledumbrella.com/coppers-corner.html
BMRA [Building Materials Reuse Association]: www.bmra.org
More Information on Michael Reynolds: http://concretekax.blogspot. com/2010/06/garbage-warrior. html
Plastic Bottle Building [Used 1.5 million plastic bottles]: http://www.treehugger.com/ files/2010/04/massive-plastic- bottle-building-unveiled-in- taiwan.php
Recycled Biennale Building: http://www.archdaily.com/8380/ xvi-chilean-architecture- biennale-installation-felipe- assadi/
“Human Pump”: http://www.tuvie.com/search/ reusable+materials
Sustainable Resources: http://earth. sustainablesources.com/
Sustainability as a Cultural Problem: http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/ research/publications/hdm/ back/hdm_18wang.pdf
[SOURCES]
http://www.recycling-revolution.com/recycling-facts.html
Concrete Facts: http://www.cement.org/buildings/sustainable_lca.asp
Concrete Sustainability Assessment: http://www.cement.org/buildings/sustainable_lca.asp
Recyclable Building Materials: http://earthship.com/materials/green-building-construction-materials
Scrap Tires: http://www.p2pays.org/ref/11/10504/html/intro/ploblems.htm
Earthship Tires: http://earthship.com/component/content/article/38-materials/42-the-primary-building-block-of-earthship-biotecture.html
Big Dig House: http://inhabitat.com/big-dig- house/
Railroad Tire Façade: http://inhabitat.com/book- review-rematerial-from-waste- to-architecture/rematerial- book-review-2/?extend=1
Earthship: http://earthship.com/ materials/green-building- construction-materials
Beer Bottle Buddhist Temple: http://www.treehugger.com/ files/2008/10/temple-built- from-beer-bottles.php
Building Waste: http://www.builderonline.com/ recycling/waste-not.aspx
[IMAGE REFERENCES]
http://thecia.com.au/reviews/g/images/garbage-warrior-9.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessicareeder/3332533224/sizes/o/in/photostream/
http://www.thedetroiter.com/b_city/blogs/index.php?blog=2&c=1&more=1&pb=1&tb=1&title=architectural_salvage_warehouse_of_detro
http://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2010/08/Rematerial-Book-Review-7.jpg
http://transitionnewburyport.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Earthship6.jpg